


Paved With Good Intentions

by Coffee_Flavored_Kisses



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Gen, Sex Mentions, angsty patrick, gay revelation, pre-david
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-08
Updated: 2019-06-08
Packaged: 2020-04-12 15:04:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19134487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Coffee_Flavored_Kisses/pseuds/Coffee_Flavored_Kisses
Summary: Before David, there was Rachel. Before David, there was nothing.





	1. Preamble

He kept telling himself he wasn’t like this. He wasn’t this kind of person. He didn’t go to bars and hook up with random women. He didn’t down five shots, sing Kenny Rogers at the karaoke stand, then go home with he first girl to give him a hearty “woo-hoo.” But here he was with her. Whatever her name was. Here they were. In the basement of his parents’ house where he’d been living while he tried to get Rachel out of his system again.

She was pretty enough, this one. But she was a blonde, and he’d never really been into blondes. He shouldn’t have cared that much. She hiked up her dress as soon as the door closed behind him in his childhood bedroom to reveal that she wasn’t wearing underwear. This should have turned him on, or so he’d always heard. But it only made him feel a sweeping moment of relief in knowing that this would all be over that much quicker then.

He kissed her, figuring that kissing a stranger must be something wonderful, must be something a little bit dangerous, something just enough out of character for him that he’d get some kind of thrill out of it. He was dying for a thrill, and while he could have gone the route of others in his one-horse town and gotten something chemical behind the bar, he couldn’t bring himself to quite throw away his life like that. He wanted something quick and temporary. Not something that would ruin him forever.

She was noisy, enthusiastic, obviously faking her excitement (or else very easily excited over very little) as she stroked his cock hard and he pressed her up against the closet door. He reached into the pocket of his jeans, which were now just around his thighs, for the condom he’d armed himself with before he left home that evening. His fingers fumbled over the foil packet, and she made a little joke and told him to do it without. He wanted a risk, but not that badly. He went soft again just trying to get the condom ready.

“You okay, sweetie?” she asked, and he noticed she had a bit of a southern drawl or was damn good at pretending she did.

It hit him that this might have been the answer he was dreading. Why had it gotten so difficult having sex with Rachel the past few months? Was it really that boring, that unexciting for him? Or was there something really wrong with him?

He was now seeing that it was the latter.

“Just… keep going,” he urged the stranger with a shake of his head, closing his eyes, kissing her neck, willing himself to _just do this. Even if it isn’t good, even if it doesn’t last long, just do this. Prove you can_.

It wasn’t working. Even when she told him he had a pretty cock, “the kind I could just eat right up,” it wasn’t working. For some reason, it hit him just then that her perfume was unpleasant, and her hair kept getting in his face. For some reason, these few thoughts were ruining everything, and he hated himself.

Her hand was cramping from trying so hard, and he saw the lustful playfulness in her eyes dance away and leave frustration in its wake. He reached between her legs and fingered her, which she seemed amused by for a moment before she gently pushed his hand away.

“It’s okay, sugar. It’s just not your night.”

She moved away from that space where he had put her and walked freely to the shoes she’d kicked off just inside his door, picked up her bag from the chair, and placed her hand on the doorknob. He offered her a ride, but she promised she’d call an Uber. At least he didn’t have to worry about a repeat lack of performance. He’d never see her again.

He watched out his window until she was gone, those three or four minutes the first peaceful ones he’d had since he walked in the bar with that mission in mind. He walked to the sink for a glass of water and fell back into his bed filled to the brim with self-loathing. So it wasn’t Rachel’s fault. It was his. She deserved better than the breakup he’d given her.

He didn’t even wait until morning. He rushed over to Rachel’s apartment before the sun was up and knocked and knocked until she answered the door wrapped in his bathrobe. The look on his face worried her, but she wasn’t surprised. He always came back. And sure, there was a moment when she thought this was the breakup that would stick, but now with him standing there in front of her and him rushing forward to hold her tight and him crying his eyes out for an hour straight curled up in bed with his shoes still on, she figured it all out. If this one didn’t stick, none of them would.

This was just a thing Patrick did, she guessed.

In the morning, Rachel made what Patrick always held were the best biscuits and gravy on Planet Earth. She served them to him in bed and didn’t even bring up the events from the early morning hours. He loved that about her. She didn’t want to talk about the breakups and their problems. She was a doer, not a talker. That’s good for a relationship. _God knows I talk too much anyway_. She said she loved him as she kissed him quickly and left for work. He called his bank and moved some money from his savings account. If he didn’t do this now, he never would.

Rachel’s office job was always tedious, boring, demanding, unfulfilling. She had a routine of coming home afterwards and having a glass of wine while she watched whatever she had recorded the night before. Always a day behind in her shows, but she didn’t use social media much, so the habit never bothered her. Even though she’d practically been begging Patrick to move in with her since she got her own place, she still enjoyed those nights when she could come home and be alone. She thought about getting a cat, maybe. She liked gray cats. Gray with green eyes. Maybe she’d go to the shelter the next day, she thought. She thought this most days.

She spotted his car still in the lot when she came back, so she knew he must have stayed at her place all day. Maybe this was the new him. Maybe the new Patrick was going to be more attentive and caring. Maybe the new Patrick wanted to move in! But she was getting ahead of herself, and she knew it. She unlocked her door and pushed it open, immediately overwhelmed with the scent of roses and candles. And there he was on one knee on the kitchen floor, puppy dog eyes as he stared up at her. An expression on his face that she didn’t understand.

“Patrick?”

He smiled, but she didn’t quite believe it.

“Marry me,” he said.

Instinctively, she raised her hands to cover her mouth in surprise. “Really?”

He stood and took a step closer. “I didn’t buy a ring, but I’m going to. I just had to do this now. Today. I had to.”

He really did.

“I don’t need a ring to say yes to you,” she smiled. She rushed forward and grabbed a hold of him, every tiny bit of her wrapped around him. She was so happy. He felt better now.

“We can go together,” he said, not sure what else to say. “We can go to Schmidt’s and pick out whatever you want, okay? We’ll go tomorrow.”

She didn’t answer. He thought maybe she was crying, but she wasn’t.

But she did smell so familiar and comfortable. He wondered how he’d ever left her. This was the only woman in the world he’d ever felt anything for, and even if it wasn’t perfect, even if there were days he doubted, nothing could take that away. She’d been there through those awkward high school years when all he wanted to do was play baseball and sing in the choir. She’d been there while he was away at business school, even when he spent weeks without talking to her. She was always waiting for him. And she’d always taken him back, even when he broke up with her and spent the night with some random stranger he’d gotten drunk and hooked up with. Like he’d tried to do last night. And she never asked where he’d been or who he’d seen. She was just there for him. He loved her for that.

He took her to bed and kissed her and found it easy this time to make love to her. Afterwards, he felt that same guilt he always did, but he figured this time it was because he’d tried to accomplish this with someone else less than a day ago. He figured there was always some reason for the guilt, the uncomfortable feeling of _something’s off_ that he felt after sex. But even if nothing came to mind immediately, he’d taken a few psychology classes in school and had learned a lot about the subconscious. Mostly, he’d learned that if you feel some way about something but you don’t know why, your subconscious does. So there’s no reason to think about it.

They didn’t make it to Schmidt’s Fine Jewelers that weekend (he had to work) or the following weekend (he had to take his friend Matt to the airport) or the weekend after that (he decided to try saving a little more first). But he had started moving his things into her place, and he was starting to call it “our place” instead of “your place” when he talked to Rachel about where he could put his stuff. _Our stuff_. She told him that once he had everything in place, they’d have a big party for everyone and announce the engagement. Maybe by then, she’d have a ring to show off. _Wink, wink_.

He didn’t have much. A chair he was fond of, a pair of lamps he’d bought when he moved to college. His same three outfits with four copies each. His books. His guitar. He told his mom that he was going to keep his photo books at home. Why? He didn’t know. Thought they’d be safer there, maybe. Something about that seemed too permanent, but he’d never admit it out loud.

They finally made it to Schmidt’s, where Rachel chose a modest gold band with a single circle-cut solitaire. It was beautiful, and so was she, and he wished he could appreciate those things more. But as it was now teetering on a month of their newly-official engagement, he was falling back into old routines. Psyching himself up to have sex with her when it should have been the most natural thing in the world. Trying to be excited about picking out curtains and bedding and plates and registering for wedding gifts but knowing that none of those things would make any of this more comfortable. Slipping into the bathroom to watch the first three minutes of a porn video so that he could have sex without the preamble. Looking at her while she slept and wishing he could transport his thoughts into her dreams so that he’d never have to express them aloud.

They had the party. Booze flowed through them all like the river where he and his father spent their summers fishing, but without the comfort and with more of the stench. The same two dozen friends they’d had since high school all showed up, as did his parents, as did hers. It was all pleasant and, at some points, even fun for Patrick. Until she approached him outside the bedroom and told him it was time to make the big announcement.

She slipped on the ring that she’d been keeping in her pocket and took Patrick’s hand in hers. They went out to the living room and she told everyone to quiet down because she and Patrick wanted to say a few things.

He wiped a bit of sweat from his brow. It was autumn. There was no reason for the sweat.

She started with what he’d feared she’d start with. “We’ve had our ups and downs, but we’ve always come back to each other” and “this just felt so right that I had to say yes,” and he found himself fighting those demons of self-hatred because he knew he didn’t feel the same way she did. He and his father shared a knowing glance, probably both remembering that two-hour phone call they’d had just a couple of months ago when Patrick had told his dad that none of this felt right and none of this ever would. He forced a smile when everyone cheered and started in with the congratulations. People asked if they’d set a date, and Patrick butted in for the first time with “Not yet, but probably next summer.”

Or maybe the summer after that.

Rachel’s stepmom asked if they were going to have kids, and while Rachel brushed it off with an “it’s too soon to talk about that,” Patrick was dying inside because the thought of having kids with a woman he knew he’d never love exactly right was just setting them up for failure. Shouldn’t kids have examples like what he’d had growing up? And he’d never have what his parents had. Almost no one did.

So no, no kids.

People shuffled out, but Clint and Marcy Brewer stayed behind. Marcy wanted to help Rachel clean up, or so she said. Really, she wanted to give Patrick a chance to talk to his father. They all seemed to know he needed it.


	2. Reality

It started with silence, the two men sitting on the balcony overlooking the modest town views and enjoying the fresh air drifting between their bodies. They could probably have stayed like this for hours, neither one of them saying a word, and it would still be a deeper conversation than any Patrick had had with Rachel in the past year.

“How’s work?” Clint finally asked.

“Work’s work,” Patrick shrugged, his eyes still out on the fading horizon.

“Congratulations.”

It came out as more of a question than any kind of a well-wish. Patrick glanced over. “Thanks, Dad.”

“She’s a great girl.”

Patrick felt sick. “Yeah. She really is.”

As Patrick looked away again, his father looked at him, scrutinizing further. “So why the long face?”

Clint had told Patrick a joke once. A horse walks into a bar and the bartender asks, “Why the long face?” And that’s it. That’s the joke. Eight-year-old Patrick loved it. So Clint would use this phrase sometimes when he wanted to know what was bothering Patrick – something happening more often than not these days – but didn’t want to make it seem too serious. Even if, like now, he knew it was.

Patrick smiled the smile his dad was hoping for, but it didn’t last. “I don’t know,” he said, pulling a beer to his lips but hesitating before he took a sip.

Clint only nodded. This was the game they played.

“I tried sleeping with someone else,” Patrick said, unprompted.

“Oh.” Clint cleared his throat. “Okay…”

“It didn’t work out. Nothing happened.”

“When was this?”

“When we broke up last month.”

This wasn’t the kind of thing they talked about, but Patrick was dying to tell someone. And since no one ever asked, he offered it up. Now, as it all hung out there in the open, he had no idea what to do with it. Neither one of them did.

“You’d never do anything with anyone else while you two were together, would you?” A concerned Clint asked at last.

“No. Never.”

“Okay. Good. You’re thirty years old, bud. You’re too old for that shit.”

Patrick smiled. His dad didn’t often cuss. It wasn’t really a Brewer thing, cussing. Not unless Marcy was half a box of sangria deep with her friends during the season finale of _The Bachelorette_. Or unless Clint didn’t have any other way of expressing himself.

“I think I’m gonna end up hurting her, Dad.” He finished his beer, but he still held the empty bottle in his hands.

“Well sure, if you tell yourself you will. Of course you will.”

“No. I don’t want to. I just think I will without trying.”

“Then you keep trying not to. You wake up every day and you tell yourself that whatever you do that day, you won’t do anything that would hurt your wife.”

The words were lemon juice on a papercut. _Your wife_.

“Is that how you make your marriage work?” Somehow Patrick didn’t think so.

“Well…” Clint cleared his throat again. “No. No, I’ve never had to do that, I guess. It just comes naturally for me not to do anything to hurt her.”

“Well I don’t want to hurt Rachel, either. I told you that.”

“No, I know. But when you love someone like the way I love your mom, it comes naturally. You don’t have to think about it. You just naturally think about doing things that are good for them. You just naturally _don’t_ do things that will hurt them. When you love someone the right way, you don’t have to remind yourself.”

But Clint heard the words as they came out the way that Patrick was hearing them, and both men knew. They knew it was over.

Patrick’s face dropped into his hands. His shoulders slumped, then shook a little. Clint scooted his chair clumsily, loudly closer toward Patrick, stretched out his arms, and held his son through it. They didn’t say another word.

It may have been ten minutes, may have been an hour before Marcy and Rachel found the men on the balcony. They didn’t open the door that separated them, but Rachel’s hand slipped over Marcy’s elbow, and she pulled her close. “Look at them,” she said. “Sharing a moment.”

Marcy knew that this was more than that. And honestly, so did Rachel.

“You must be looking forward to the planning,” Marcy said, slowly encouraging Rachel away from the door and to the living room. “Have you gotten any plans together?”

As Rachel shared all the colors and types of flowers she’s been picturing since they started dating, Marcy tried to feel more encouraged. She knew Rachel loved her son, and that was all she wanted in the world. For Patrick to be with someone who loved him. Someone who understood him.

She wasn’t as sure about the second part, but she figured that would come in time. But then her boys joined them, Patrick’s face still a bit red, a bit puffy. Clint looking as though he’d just taken the weight of the world onto his shoulders.

“Well, I think we should get going and let these kids get back to their new life,” he commented, resting his hand softly on Marcy’s shoulder.

“Are we still on for Sunday dinner?” Marcy asked.

Patrick nodded as Rachel gave an enthusiastic yes.

The elder Brewers left, and Rachel and Patrick stood where they’d said goodbye to their guests, his arm around her shoulder, hers around his waist. She was so small and sweet and fit so well next to him, and he remembered again how wonderful it is just to be familiar with a person. Even if it had taken them ten years, twelve years, however long it had been, to get to this point. They were here now. That’s what mattered.

They did their usual routine and got dressed for bed, brushing their teeth beside one another, thinking about work the next day, trying not to think about the more distracting thoughts at hand. _Why isn’t he kissing me right now? Why don’t I want to kiss her right now?_ They went to bed and slipped under the covers, where she lay on her side away from him and he lay on his back staring up at the ceiling that started to form once the lights had been off for a while. She fell asleep fairly quickly, but he couldn’t even dream of sleeping now. This was a glimpse into the next fifty years. Side by side in bed, routine. Brushing teeth. Work. Routine. His parents were excited to wake up and know the person they woke up beside. He was glad enough to have Rachel, but it would never be what his parents had. And that had only been confirmed tonight when he talked to his father about it.

He left the bed and headed back out to the couch. All the lights were out except the one coming from the faux fireplace. He sat there staring at artificial flames. The poetry of the moment was not lost on him.

He could hear her delicate footsteps behind him. Her voice, sweet and comforting, calling his name in a worried sort of tone he wished she didn’t have to use. Her hand fell to his shoulder, down his back. She took a seat on the couch beside him.

“What is it?” she asked.

He hesitated, eyes still forward. “I love you so much,” he whispered.

“I love you, too.”

He shook his head, and she could see the tears about to spill from his eyes. “No,” he said. “I mean… I love you. I love you too much.”

She let her hand fall to his thigh, and she squeezed it tight. “You’ll never love me too much,” she smiled.

“Too much to hurt you again,” he continued. “It’s not fair. You deserve better.”

She took in a breath, but only let it out once she decided she wouldn’t fight this. It was about to happen again, but it wouldn’t last. It never did. She knew that.

“I just wish I hadn’t made you go through this whole thing tonight,” he started, all of it ending in tears. He was grateful that after all this time, she’d gotten used to his crying enough for him to do it so freely around her. He fell against her body, and she wrapped her arms around his shoulders.

“Baby, it’s okay,” she said. “It’s gonna be fine. We needed tonight.”

His sobs grew harder, maybe the hardest they’d been since the time they broke up before he left for college. It was the kind of crying he did when he realized he was leaving home and everyone in it.

“I can’t,” he tried to say, but he never quite finished the thought. I can’t… I can’t…”

She tucked his head under her chin and rocked him a little. “Just breathe, baby. Don’t force it. Just breathe.”

He did. She was good at getting him to. And once he found himself again, he removed himself from her hold, as comfortable as it was.

“We can’t get married,” he said at last. And for the first time, he looked her in the eye.

She stared at him for a moment, her eyes narrowing. “Don’t do this now,” she whispered.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry. We can’t. I can’t.”

“Goddammit, Patrick.” She was still whispering, but her eyes were screaming. He felt like shit.

“I know I keep doing this where I break up with you, then we get back together, but I think tonight made it all real, you know? Our friends, our families… It was like I was already at the wedding, and I didn’t--”

“Stop it, okay? Just stop it.” Her voice had returned, and she stood now. “What’s it going to take with you, huh?”

He knit his brows and looked her over, confused. “What do you mean?”

“How many times have we broken up, Patrick? And we always get back together, don’t we? Doesn’t matter where we go or what we do while we’re broken up, it’s never better than this. And sure, maybe this isn’t perfect. But whose relationship is? This is what works for us.”

He shook his head. “It doesn’t work for me.”

“Then why do you keep coming back?”

Because he was scared. Because he was embarrassed. Because years of confusion and self-loathing had led him to the conclusion that this was the best he deserved. The best he could do. And he knew how lucky he was to be with her. Hell, she could get anyone she wanted. She had done, actually, while they’d been broken up. But she kept choosing him, over and over, and it was easy. It was easy for him to come back to her every time.

“Because I don’t go far enough,” he said.

“The fuck does that mean?”

“I leave you, but I don’t go anywhere. I think I need to actually go somewhere.”

“So you’re gonna go _Eat, Pray, Love_ your way around the world before you figure out what you already know? That we belong together?”

He bowed his head and ran his hands clumsily through his hair. “I don’t know. Probably not.”

She knew what he would do. He’d leave, go to his parents’ house, crash in the basement apartment they’d made for him after college, and try to find the meaning of life for the hundredth time before realizing he didn’t actually like being away from her. She decided that whenever this one was over, they’d just elope. She didn’t think she could endure an engagement with this version of Patrick.

“I have a friend that knows a place up north that’s looking for an administrative assistant. He mentioned it kind of in passing because… well, the place has a weird name, but that’s not important. Anyway, I looked into the job, and--”

“When?”

“What?”

“When did you look into the job?”

He swallowed hard as he looked over at her again. “Last week,” he said.

“So you were already thinking of moving away last week?”

“No. No, I promise. I actually thought maybe the two of us could move there together, you know? Get away from everything here. All the distractions and stuff.”

“But I have a job here. And my family.”

“I know,” he nodded. “And that’s why I dropped it. But then I thought about maybe going there… just me.”

Rachel let out an exasperated sigh.

“It’s just a temp job,” he said. “Six months.”

“Why do you think this will be different from the other times?”

“Because,” he started, and he didn’t realize until then how much he’d really thought of it. “We’ll be apart from each other. Clear minds. Both of us.”

“Did you run out of girls here to try to use to get over me?” she asked, half-joking.

He didn’t answer.

“Fine.” Her answer was curt and sure. “You need to get away for six months and think about stuff? Fine. You do that.”

She stood up to leave, but he took her hand. She looked down at him. They stayed like this, his thumb running over the back of her hand as his chin started to quiver. She fell into his lap, and they held on to each other, crying as silently as they could manage until they fell asleep.


	3. If

When he woke up, she was gone. _At work, probably. No. Wait. It’s Saturday_.

He looked around for what he could pack, but he knew the damning truth his history foretold. He’d be back here in six months or less. He packed his clothes in a single suitcase, his guitar, the four books he owned that he hadn’t read yet. He drove to his parents’ house and told them his plans. He texted that guy, Ray, to see if the job was still available. Of course it was. He said he’d be there by Monday.

His parents, like Rachel, didn’t try too hard to talk him out of leaving.  They said they’d miss him, obviously, and that they hoped he’d be back. But something told them that he wouldn’t be. Not for a long time, anyway. And if he did come back, things wouldn’t be the same. They couldn’t put their finger on it, but there it was, somewhere in there. Somewhere in Patrick. A fire that had only just now been ignited.

He hugged his parents a little longer than usual. Marcy sent him off with a batch of freshly-baked coconut wafers (never had been his favorite, but they were what she’d made that day, and she couldn’t send him off empty-handed). He entered the address of Ray Butani’s Real Estate, Photography, and Closet Organization into his GPS, and sure enough, there really was such a town as Schitt’s Creek. It was a good ten-hour drive, so he tuned in to some of the podcasts he’d been meaning to listen to, switched now and then to his favorite playlists, and drove for as many long stretches as he could between so that he could make it there without the temptation to turn back. Still, given the vast roadway construction and the number of times he’d stopped to enjoy a particularly picturesque mountain view along the way, he knew he’d inevitably have to stop to stay somewhere. Luckily, he happened upon a half-decent hotel just three hundred miles short of his destination.

The place wasn’t fancy by any means, but it was clean and close to the open road. Rooms were a cool eighty a night, and they offered room service. Not that he’d ever use it, but he figured a hotel with room service couldn’t be too terrible.

He settled into a room with a west-facing view so that he could watch the sun set. He ordered a pizza to his room and watched an episode or two of _Cheers_ as he ate. But the later it got, the more he wanted to keep going. He knew it couldn’t be good for him, sitting alone in a room like this. He would end up thinking about things. He didn’t want to think about things. He wanted to be excited about a new adventure and this unknown journey to a town he didn’t know. He wanted to be excited about the things he’d do and what he’d learn and hey, maybe meet someone interesting. He doubted it. But he wasn’t able to think about those things. He was only able to think about home. About his mom and dad worried sick about him. About not giving Rachel a proper goodbye. He owed her that much at least. He checked his phone and thought about texting her, but he didn’t. Instead, he left the phone in his room, grabbed his key card, and took a walk around the hotel to keep his mind busy.

He’d thought about getting into the hospitality business someday. He’d thought that if he ever owned a hotel, it would be something like this. But the pool would be open all year, and the gym would be updated. This gym was pathetic. But then, he’d never settle in here. Too busy. He wanted something quieter for himself.

If.

In the lobby, a new person had taken the evening shift at the counter. He was taller and younger than the man there earlier. He was handsome, the way Matt was handsome. Before Matt grew the beard and started wearing his hats backwards. He missed Matt. Something kind and familiar in this man’s eyes made Patrick say hello. And then he approached the counter. He didn’t know why, exactly.

“Is everything suitable for you?” the man asked.

“Yeah, yeah,” Patrick nodded. “It’s good. I’m just bored.”

“Well, we have our athletic room open twenty-four hours.”

Patrick smiled. “Yeah,” he nodded. “I dropped by there earlier.” Which was technically true. “Is there anything to do around here?”

The man smiled, and Patrick noticed his nametag. Joe. Short and simple.

“Not really, if I’m honest.”

Patrick eased into a little laugh as he rested his elbows up on the counter. “You guys usually this busy?”

The lobby echoed around them. “We get busy during ski season,” Joe answered. “You caught us on a good day for summer, honestly.”

“So this is a ski town?” That made sense, given the mountains. But he’d never heard of this place.

“It’s popular in its own niche sort of way,” Joe said. “People with timeshares in the mountains have something to do in the winter. It’s really all we offer.”

“I’ve never been skiing. Is it any fun?”

Joe shrugged. “I was pretty much born in a snowsuit, so I might not be the best judge of that.”

“So you were skiing before you were walking, basically?”

“Pretty much,” Joe laughed. Patrick liked his laugh.

“So if I ever decided to take it up, I guess I know who to come to for lessons?”

Joe considered the smile on Patrick’s face, smiled politely in response, then shook his head. “You’re cute,” he answered. “But I should probably tell you I have a boyfriend.”

“What?” Patrick asked, genuinely confused. “No. I wasn’t…” He removed his elbows awkwardly from the counter. “I wasn’t trying to… you know… I wasn’t flirting.”

“Oh,” Joe said. “Okay. I was mistaken.” He winked.

“I wasn’t,” Patrick repeated. “I’m sorry if it seemed like I was.”

“Don’t be sorry,” he said with a smile. “It’s flattering. But I really do have a boyfriend.”

Patrick didn’t know what to say to this. Had he really come across that way? And why? How?

“Um. Okay. Well, thanks for the conversation, Joe,” Patrick said because he didn’t know how else to end this uncomfortable moment. “I guess I’ll see you around. Or… well, no I probably won’t. But still.”

“Goodnight, sir,” Joe said, typing something or other into his computer.

Patrick didn’t need this tonight. He didn’t need to be thinking about this again. His feelings, his relationship. The reason he was so much more comfortable talking to men than women, the jokes he used to get from kids when he and Matt would sit a little too close to each other in choir. It was stupid. They didn’t know him. How could they when he didn’t even know himself?

Or maybe he should call Rachel. That was what he usually did when things got confusing. Even when their relationship was rocky, even a couple times while they were smack-dab in the middle of a breakup, she could reassure him. Not necessarily about any one specific thing, but in general. His whole life had been a collection of generalities. He hated these little specifics that kept bugging him.

But Joe was flattered. Joe called him cute. He couldn’t hate that even if he tried.

When he checked out the next day and continued on, he called his mom and decided to keep her updated about his progress.

“I’m supposed to be getting there in about forty-five minutes,” he said, glancing over at the GPS. “It’ll feel nice to stretch my legs again.”

She asked if he had eaten breakfast, and he said he had. He hadn’t. She asked if the weather was nice, and he said it wasn’t much different from home, which was true. She told him that Rachel had stopped by the night before, and that she wanted him to know she loved him. He said he loved her too. But he needed space. And anyway, he was starting to feel better already now that he was meeting people outside of home. He hadn’t done that since college.

He’d really only met Joe, but the man had made an impression for some reason.

She wished him luck, ended the call just as he passed a billboard too good not to snap a photo of. And indecent rendition of a man standing behind a woman, both of them in early century clothing, a smaller sign attached saying “Don’t worry, it’s his sister!” He sent it to his parents in a group message. He thought about sending it to Rachel. He didn’t.

Ray Butani was nothing like what Patrick expected. He was talkative and eccentric and really did have at least three businesses, all run out of his modest home on the edge of town. He walked Patrick through the workspace that would become his, told him he’d be assigned to “paperwork, mostly, but there might be the occasional odd job, too.” Patrick worried about what that might be, but he didn’t want to worry now. The house smelled invitingly of pinecones and paper, and the desk was just big enough to put a few pictures of family and friends. One of his parents. One of him and Matt that he’d taken at Matt’s bachelor party last year.

For some reason, he decided ultimately not to display the picture of Matt.

His hands shook that first day at work as he answered calls from all kinds of people and found himself somewhere between amused and bewildered. He’d gotten a call from a brother and sister who wanted to surprise their parents with a marina-themed in-studio photoshoot. He’d gotten a call from a man who claimed he’d been sold a phony lottery ticket (Patrick had no idea how many ways there were to say “call the police, maybe?”). And then he’d gotten a call from the woman who owned the local general store. She had just reached an agreement with a young man in town by the name of David Rose. He’d be by later for his business license. _Please treat him nicely. I think he’s trying to back out._


	4. Beginning

The name was familiar to Patrick for some reason. David Rose. It sounded like something.

But of course there had to be, like, a million David Roses in North America.

But there couldn’t be that many in Schitt’s Creek, could there?

He Googled “David Rose Schitt’s Creek” and his jaw dropped at the headlines. Nothing about the general store, but something from about three years before. The Rose family of Blockbuster rival Rose Video fame had been hit hard by a long list of legal issues before ultimately ending up in a town Johnny Rose had bought some twenty-five years before. The town was Schitt’s Creek.

The photos available of the Rose family were wild. Some were of a young Moira Rose, daytime soap star, in permed hair and hoop earrings in a dramatic scene by a mirror. Some were Alexis Rose, who could easily have been some kind of supermodel, arm-in-arm with a series of young men who all looked much too ordinary to be with someone like her. Johnny Rose’s photos were all eyebrows and gray suits, the hues of both changing as the decades passed. But then David Rose, who would be coming in for his business license application, stood out even from this rather peculiar cast of characters.

Patrick had worked at a Rose Video when he was a teenager. It was his first job. It was where he’d fallen in love with silent film, with Charlie Chaplin’s _City Lights_. It was where he’d seen training videos of Johnny and Moira Rose, occasionally accompanied by their children, in tacky costumes reading from a terrible script talking about customer loyalty and employee morale.

He remembered David Rose now. He remembered him so well.

He’d never told a soul about this, but he’d actually taken some of those training videos home back in the day. His reasons were never anything untoward, but he got a kick out of the way Johnny and David interacted. He’d always thought David was kind of cute in a goth sort of way. He figured maybe he was jealous of David’s looks, which was why he’d studied those videos and watched them so often. Also, he was always business-minded. There must have been a sort of proficiency-driven aspect to his studying, too.

He watched the door like a hawk every time the bell rang. The siblings came in to surprise their parents. The man with the lottery ticket wanted Ray to take the matter to town council and crack down on local bodegas (Ray, Patrick learned, was no longer on town council, and Schitt’s Creek had no bodegas). But David Rose never showed up that day. Nor the next. Nor the next.

He wondered if he’d ended up backing out of the deal, after all.

Ray found out that Patrick was renting a room in Elmdale and driving nearly an hour to and from work each day, so he offered him the upstairs bedroom for only a little more money. Patrick figured that it couldn’t be a terrible idea living this much closer to work, so he took Ray up on the offer. The day after he moved in, he regretted it.

Ray was nice. Very nice. Too nice. Constantly asking Patrick if he needed anything. Constantly trying to show him projects he was working on, constantly bugging him about reality TV shows that Patrick had no interest in at all. Two weeks he’d been here, and things hadn’t gotten any better. His third Monday there, he typed up his two-week notice. He sent it to the draft folder of his email and decided to send it in the middle of the night when he was sure Ray would be asleep and therefor unable to respond right away.

He stood from his computer and walked to the kitchen to the side of Ray’s makeshift studio (the living room). There was only so much he could take, especially with the current shoot going on and the uncomfortable positions he was putting them in and his enthusiastic coaching. He placed his hands on the edge of the sink and ran cold water to drown out the noise of the camera clicks. He heard the bell over the door ring, but he couldn’t bring himself to answer.

A moment later, Ray’s voice called out Patrick’s name. He stepped out of the kitchen and immediately saw someone he’d never met. Someone he missed dearly.

By the end of the night, he had deleted the notice he’d saved to his draft folder.

He wasn’t going anywhere.


End file.
